GPS users from the Swan Hill region, including farmers preparing for sowing, were caught up in a worldwide problem last week.
Late last week, GPS users reported problems with their equipment when the systems suddenly stopped working.
According to most reports, the outage only lasted a short period of time before services were reinstated.
Lost satellite connection has been blamed for the communication failure, but the exact cause remains a mystery.
GPS receivers use information from satellites to determine the exact position of the receiver. Satellites from the United States, Russia and China all form part of the system.
Earlier last week, it was reported that Russia’s Glonass satellite was hit by an unexplained major disruption, and problems were predicted to arise with GPS systems.
“At the moment people are probably only spraying and looking at land layout, if it had happened in the next four weeks when they were sowing it would have been nuts…”
Murray Valley Lasers manager Colin O’Bryan said it was difficult to tell what caused a problem if it was related to a satellite, as there was no place to contact to find out what was going on.
This meant GPS users had to wait it out until the service returned, creating inconvenience for some.
“Once we explain that there isn’t anything wrong with their equipment, they [are okay],” Mr O’Bryan said.
“At the moment people are probably only spraying and looking at land layout, if it had happened in the next four weeks when they were sowing it would have been nuts.”
Mr O’Bryan said it had not been such an issue a few years ago, however with many producers now using GPS in their farm operations a satellite outage created much more of a problem.
Mallee GPS owner Neil Bedggood said he hadn’t seen a problem like it before.
He said he had received about 15 calls on Thursday from GPS users, but that it seemed to have been resolved quickly.
Brendan Crabbe was driving a sprayer at a property in Kooloonong when the GPS system suddenly went down.
“All it did was the screen beeped at me and couldn’t find the satellite,” he said.
“We use it for everything… all of the main tractor jobs.”
